3 Paths Forward For Astros Forrest Whitley

It would be an understatement to say that the Houston Astros have had a lot of “can’t miss” pitching prospects miss, and miss in spectacular fashion. Since Lance McCullers Jr. was drafted in 2012, the Astros have had plenty of position players hit, including Carlos Correa who was drafted that very same year with the number one overall pick.

Since then the team has had Alex Bregman, Yordan Alvarez and Kyle Tucker all come through the system and become impact players on a daily basis.

That hasn’t been the case on the pitching side of things. From Mark Appel to Francis Martes to Brady Aiken, who didn’t even sign with the team after being drafted the Astros just haven’t had much luck with their top pitching prospects. This worked out for the Astros since the next year the team got the No. 2 overall pick as a result, leading to the drafting of Alex Bregman.

Forrest Whitley is in danger of becoming yet another “can’t miss” pitching prospect not panning out.

Whitley was drafted out of high school with the 17th overall pick in 2016.

His first season in the minors had Astros fans salivating at the idea of what seemed to be a Carlos Correa type-phenom who would get called up within a year after dominating across three levels jumping to double-A by the age of 19, where he closed the season striking out 26 across 14.2 innings against only four walks with a 1.84 ERA.

Over the entirety of the season he led the minors in strikeouts per nine innings with 13.94.

Since then a suspension for violating MLB’s Minor League Drug Prevention and Treatment Program along with Tommy John surgery have dropped him from No. 1 to No. 5 on the Astros top 30 prospects rankings according to MLB.com.

At one point, Whitley was ahead of Kyle Tucker on the Astros prospect list. So what does the future hold for Forrest Whitley. There are really only three potential outcomes.

The Francis Martes outcome.

Francis Martes was an untouchable prospect in 2017. The Houston Astros front office and fans alike were loathe to even discuss the idea of involving him in a trade package.

As we go back now it would have been better if Martes had been around to send to the Milwaukee Brewers for Mike Fiers and Carlos Gomez instead of Josh Hader. But Josh Hader was born just a few years too early and Martes a few years too late for them to swap places.

Of course it’s impossible to tell what the Astros could have gotten for Martes and considering they went on to win the World Series in 2017 there’s no need to ask “what if?” questions.

But having a prospect sit idly without providing value on your major league roster or being used as an asset to improve your major league roster via trade is unfortunately a reality facing the Astros regarding Forrest Whitley.

Despite all the analytics, measurements of velocity and spin rate and whatever other metrics you want to use to rate a player’s value, the mental aspect cannot be judged with numbers on a piece of paper.

Martes and Appel are both great examples of guys with all the potential in the world but for whatever reason couldn’t put it together to make an impact on the Major League level. These are two outcomes we Astros fans hope Forrest Whitley can avoid and instead reach the third possible outcome.

The Lance McCullers Jr. outcome.

While Framber Valdez and Jose Urquidy have shown flashes of brilliance, they’re probably right where they should be in a rotation at the numbers three and four spot. Luis Garcia and Cristian Javier both have impressed in their short time at the major league level.

But none of those pitchers were considered top prospects on their way up. The Astros have been able to find diamonds in the rough with these pitchers, especially  Luis Garcia who somehow jumped from single-A to the majors and was able to become the second place vote getter in the Rookie of the year award this past season.

Lance McCullers Jr. was considered a steal and the Astros drafted Carlos Correa number one overall so they could pay him below slot value (at the time Byron Buxton was considered the consensus top choice for the number one overall pick in the 2012 draft) so they could go above slot value in the compensatory rounds.

They did just that giving McCullers Jr. a $2.5 million signing bonus with the 41st pick. For perspective the slot value of the No. 13 overall pick in 2012 was $2.5 million. The slot value for the 41st pick that year was $1,258,700. The Astros doubled the signing bonus to get McCullers. That’s how highly they valued him.

And he is the last top Astros pitching prospect to fulfill the promise of being a future ace, putting together his best season yet this past year and finishing seventh in Cy Young voting.

Astros fans are still hoping Whitley can return to his 2017 form when he dominated on his astronomical rise to double-A in his first professional season.

As stated earlier though, the age 24 season for a prospect truly is a make or break season. Astros fans can only hope this is the year Whitley makes the jump and avoids the fortunes of the Mark Appels and Francis Martes of the the world.